


Your Immortal

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Established Relationship, Immortal!Phil, M/M, mortal!dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 07:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21240728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: It’s genetics. Recessive. Moderately uncommon, but comparable to widow’s peaks, albinism, left-handedness. Except, more uncommon than those. Immortals, as the name suggests, can’t die.An au fic about lifetimes and trees.





	Your Immortal

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderfully spoopy [ahappydnp](http://ahappydnp.tumblr.com)

It’s genetics. Recessive. Moderately uncommon, but comparable to widow’s peaks, albinism, left-handedness. Except, more uncommon than those. 

Unlike some conditions— think gigantism which comes along with incredible joint pain and muscle tearing and hypertension, and more— immortals don’t suffer from adverse physical effects. Some are more prone to allergies or the common cold, but it’s a discomfort at worst. An annoyance. Immortals, as the name suggests, can’t die. They can be killed, sure, but thankfully burning at the stake has long since fallen out of fashion. Think fictional high elves, or not-at-all-fictional lobsters. 

The hardest part is watching your family age and fade and leave you behind. 

Community is therefore important; the mental health of immortals depends on interpersonal bonds that won’t be erased in under a century. So most immortals make it a point to only date or marry or fall in love with fellow immortals. Most, not all. Some like the inherent failsafe of knowing they’ll be single again in a matter of decades. 

Some immortals even become famous. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is a classic example. Keanu Reeves is a more recognizable one. Representation of immortals in the media has made leaps and bounds.

Dan knew all of this, even if he’d dozed and daydreamed through most of secondary school when these topics were being covered. He fell in love with an immortal anyway. 

*

He’s awake but hasn’t opened his eyes, buying what few more precious seconds he can before he has to get up. He’s warm, wrapped in the flannel sheets they’d just put on the bed for the first time of the season last night. Phil’s cool skin pressed against his everywhere their bodies are tangled feels so nice; they help each other achieve equilibrium. 

Dan hears Phil’s phone alarm go off, but keeps his eyes shut. 

Phil groans and taps at the screen until he hits snooze, then curls up closer to Dan. They both want the extra rest, it seems. Dan doesn’t want to let his nerves show, but he knows Phil’s gonna pick up on them anyways. He doesn’t want to be nervous, he wants to enjoy the prospect of being Phil’s plus-one to the Halloween Social tonight. He wants to enjoy the thought of heading north to Manchester to see Phil’s childhood home. But he’s nervous. He’s afraid of thinking this all means more to him than it does to Phil. He’s afraid of misinterpreting every step in their relationship by assuming Phil’s choices are dripping with hundreds of years of context and experience. 

He’d been wary their first few months together. He’d wondered what Phil saw in him— not in the usual self-deprecating way he thinks that when he’s dating someone. But in the “Why the hell did the hundred year old Edward fall for seventeen year old Bella?” way. Like, what the hell did 294 year old Phil see in 28 year old Dan? 

Turns out, he saw plenty. Turns out it’s just another age gap. But it required a lot of learning, a lot of listening. From both of them. Some immortals are predatory in the way that some people always will be. Dan was right to be wary at first. 

Dan cracks his eyes open in the morning sunlight and sees the face of a man before him in his early thirties, despite what date of birth Dan knows is printed on Phil’s passport. 

Phil’s phone buzzes again, their snooze over. And they can’t ignore it the way they’re both itching to; they have a train to catch. 

*

“The only dance I know is like, swaying,” Dan says, even though he’s told Phil as much many times before. The countryside is blurring past the train windows. Phil watches it and Dan watches Phil, wondering if that’s how fast his lifetime seems to go by comparatively. If Dan’s on a speeding train and Phil’s a tree on the side of the tracks, tall and sturdy and with deep roots. Watching Dan pass by. 

“It’s not a ball,” Phil reminds him. “I’m not dragging you to something out of Jane Austen. Swaying will be fine.”

“You sure?” Dan says with an eyebrow raised. 

Phil nods. “It’s like, think of it like a wedding reception except we don’t have to cry at any speeches.”

Dan thinks it won’t be so bad. He just wishes he could stop feeling nervous. He’s never been around so many immortals before. He thinks he’ll feel like a toddler around them despite being a grown fucking man. He doesn’t think Phil will make him feel that way, Phil has only ever made him feel comfortable and wanted and understood. But the thought of everyone else, everyone who Phil has mingled with on Halloween for centuries, it’s twisting his stomach. 

*

Their hotel room is nice. Dan almost wishes they could just stay here the whole holiday. Just here in the hotel room, the two of them and nothing more. Oh, and a quick stop to Phil’s childhood home before they head back south. He teases that the blackout curtains are what they should hang in their own bedroom. 

“I’m not an actual vampire, y’know,” Phil rolls his eyes. He’s trying to hide a smile. Dan can see it plain as day. 

“If you were, you’d have bitten me on the first date, right?” Dan asks, lying sideways across the bed. 

“Hey, I’m a gentleman,” Phil says, laying down beside him. He rolls closer to Dan and gets his lips on Dan’s sensitive neck. “Third date,” he mutters. 

*

So Phil was right when he said it wasn’t a ball. There is no string quartet, no ice swan. But there’s still a weird air of formality hanging in the place, something Dan attributes to the historical weight of what everyone there has seen. 

He doesn’t feel like a toddler. He feels like a bratty teenager dragged to a family event. He feels like the skulls on his Alexander McQueen dress shirt are somehow mocking everyone, and he didn’t even mean to. He grabs a second champagne a little too quickly after polishing off his first as a way to combat this feeling. 

Phil knows too many people here. Dan’s never going to remember all of their names. He tries, gives them as warm a smile as he can produce and tries to remember the name they just told him, but they all fall from his ears like tree sap. 

They’re all friendly, in a business cocktail hour kind of way. 

Someone who Phil knew back in the 1960’s asks for a dance. She has bright red hair and a bright white smile and a bright green dress. Dan shoos Phil away, knowing he’d feel guilty if he insisted Phil stick by his side all night. He grabs his third champagne. 

He’s standing by a table of food, watching Phil and his friend dance with a surprising amount of grace. Someone comes to stand next to him, and though Dan knows he’d been introduced less than an hour ago he can’t for the life of him remember the man’s name— he thinks it maybe might have started with a C. Dan knows that he talked with the man about the philosophy he studied in uni, and the man told him he’d tried to stop Pliny the Elder from rowing into Pompeii, but that’s about all he remembers. “Phil said this was your first Halloween Social,” the man says. 

Dan nods. 

The man goes on. “I always thought it was pretty kitschy of us to do it on Halloween. It’s like we’re at Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party or something.” 

He says it like a joke. Dan laughs. The man doesn’t. There’s an awkward handful of seconds where Dan looks him over and tries to remember his name. The man has an ostentatiously gilded wolf pin on his blazer lapel, but Dan recognises he’s hardly one to talk when it comes to judging gaudy fashion. 

“A bit of advice? Don’t get attached to him.” The man’s eyes are on Phil; he isn’t even facing Dan. 

The hold on politeness had been waning for Dan. The buzz of alcohol in his blood melding with the buzz of building anxiety saw to that. So he lets out a scoff and doesn’t hold back the venom in his voice when he tells the man, “I didn’t ask you for advice, mate.” 

That gets the man to finally turn to him. He has an amused smirk on his face. “You aren’t special. There have been countless before you, there will be countless after. So just enjoy your time with Phil now, while you can.”

Dan can feel his face hot with anger, and a tinge of something else. Fear? Because this man is voicing the concerns Dan had been carrying? “You don’t… that’s not—”

“There are 7 billion people in the world right now,” the man goes on. “And many many more who have passed. Do you really think there’s anything unique left?” He turns towards a waiter walking by and grabs two drinks. He hands one to Dan like he hasn’t just said deeply devastating things. “You’re an existentialist, Dan, you ought to find this comforting.”

“Is this how you get your kicks?” Dan asks, setting down the glass. “Berating mortals who dare show up to the Social?” 

The man laughs, shrugs and leaves. Dan would have found the whole performance cartoonish if he weren’t so cut by it. 

*

Phil noticed something was wrong as soon as he was back by Dan’s side. He suggested some fresh air, a walk, a look at the night sky. They end up sitting by some fountains, the October night chilly and their hands folded together. 

Dan doesn’t want to tell Phil what the man said. He doesn’t want Phil to think he’s foolish for being upset by it, and he more than anything doesn’t want Phil to confirm any of it. 

Phil doesn’t push him. He says, “Alright?” and Dan nods unconvincingly. Phil poorly fakes a yawn and says he’s actually had enough of the Social for this year. They head back to their hotel. 

*

Dan wakes up in the middle of the night with a headache. He doesn’t want to stand despite knowing he needs a drink of water. He turns to Phil who is sleeping and slightly drooling. He realises he had been too upset to properly appreciate Phil in his burgundy suit earlier. And even so, he still looks stunning. It shouldn’t make sense, but he does. 

Dan reaches a sleep-clumsy hand and starts tracing the angles of Phil’s face. Phil cracks an eye open and groans. 

“Thirsty,” Dan whispers. 

“This is a weird seduction tactic,” Phil says, pressing his face into the pillow. 

“For water. And paracetamol.” 

Phil groans again. Then he stands with no further complaint. When he hands Dan the tablets and little paper hotel cup of water, he stays standing. Dan takes them, thanks him, and pats the warm spot of the bed Phil had been taking up before he stood. 

“You okay?” Phil says, still standing. 

Dan nods. “Drank too much, ate too little. I’m a lightweight the older I get.” 

Phil smiles at that. But he doesn’t move. 

Dan sighs. “I’m just in my own head,” he says. “I’m alright though.” 

That seems to be good enough for now. Phil crawls back into bed and falls asleep almost the moment he gets his arms around Dan. 

*

Phil’s childhood home is just outside of Manchester. No one lives in the old estate these days; it’s a museum. Phil doesn’t like to tell them when he visits, because he doesn’t want to be pulled in front of a crowd to answer questions about this portrait or that vase. That’s not what this old place is about for him. 

In the orchard there are abundant trees, fruit trees and imported trees and trees that show up in classic poems. 

But there is one in particular Phil wants to show Dan. An oak he planted on his fifth birthday, shortly after his parents learned he was an immortal. It is sturdy and tall and Dan thinks the sound of the leaves rustling as the autumn breeze blows through them sounds like music. 

It’s standing under the canopy of leaves, with other visitors comfortably far away, and Phil beside him looking back at the house that Dan tells him what upset him yesterday. He’s quick, he doesn’t mince the man’s words. 

“It was so pandering,” he tells Phil. “Just so smug. _Here little mortal let me give you my counsel._ As though I don’t already wonder how many people before me were better… how many after…” He finishes with, “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t let it get to me.” 

Phil doesn’t say anything for a moment, instead wrapping an arm around Dan’s shoulder. Dan leans into him. 

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he says. “Nearly 300 and I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.” 

Dan listens and believes him, despite his bullying brain. 

“We’ll be alone someday,” Dan says, barely a whisper. “I’ll be alone in the ground and you’ll be alone still visiting this tree.”

“You don’t know that,” Phil says. 

Dan laughs despite himself. “Okay, well I’ll be alone and you’ll be bringing a new bae to this tree. I’m not exactly thrilled by this alternate picture.” 

Phil holds Dan tighter. “Not what I meant. You might not be alone in the ground. You have a lot of decades left and scientists are always working. We’ll figure it out.” Phil kisses him. He pulls Dan closer to the tree trunk and they both lean their shoulders against it. “When I was a kid, people were dying of smallpox,” Phil goes on. “Then they invented vaccines.”

“There’s not a vaccine for ageing, you goof.” 

Phil shrugs. “Not yet. Billionaires are always pumping their fortunes into studies, wanting to get their hands on what makes my genes do what they do and how to turn it into a pill. Maybe they’ll pull it off before I have to bury you.” 

Despite feeling sandbag heavy, Dan wants to smile. Phil does that to him. “And until then?” 

“Until then let’s go back to the house,” Phil says after leaning forward to plant a kiss on Dan’s forehead. “I wanna show you where I carved swear words into the spare room mantelpiece when I visited in the 1880s.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/188702097504/your-immortal) !

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Your Immortal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26189362) by [yikesola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola)


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